global outreach

global outreach

ServiceSpace is an organization run entirely by volunteers. We leverage technology to encourage everyday people around the world to do small acts of service. Our aim is to ignite the fundamental generosity in ourselves and others, creating both inner and outer transformation.

ServiceSpace was conceived by volunteers, was built by volunteers, and is run by volunteers — all for the benefit of volunteers. Our projects range from a daily positive news service, to an acts-of-kindness portal, to a gift-economy restaurant. Regardless of the endeavor, we act in concert to create service opportunities for each other and to support each other’s service journeys. In September of 2011, we formally changed our name from CharityFocus to ServiceSpace. Founded in 1999, ServiceSpace was originally started to help non-profits with technical services. Over the past dozen years, the organization has become an umbrella for many generosity-driven projects. Thus we have expanded our services from focusing just on helping charities, to encouraging everyday people to contribute in meaningful ways to the world around them. As the name suggests, our new expanded ServiceSpace platform allows people to stay connected with others interested in service, participate in service opportunities through any of our dozen projects, organize their own local service event using our tools, and stay connected to inspirational content. Above all, we believe in the inherent generosity of others and aim to ignite that spirit of service. Through our small, collective acts, we hope to transform ourselves and the world.

The Top 10 Kindness Stories What if we invited people from different parts of the world, to sit around a fireplace and share stories of their experiences with kindness? A kind act that they may have done, received, or been a … DailyGood.org on Jan 6, 2016

Today’s Humans Of New York Post …Today’s Humans of New York post is a lovely random act of kindness! And the comments seem like a circle of sharing of each person’s own act of kindness received or given 🙂 For those who … Neha Phukan on Jan 6, 2016

Find Your SPARK! We got a very powerful metaphor from Awakin call with Maki Saionji Kawamura. When you put flame underneath water, its temperature is going to rise. If it continues long enough, water reaches … Deven P-Shah on Jan 5, 2016

Featured Articles

Paths Are Made by Walking Talk at UPenn graduation, that has now spread virally worldwide.

Designing For Generosity An 18-minute Ted Talk overview of our work.

What is a Gift Economy? Former editor of CS Monitor, Paul reflects on building a gift culture.

Would @Gandhi Use Social Media? Nipun’s recent talk at the UN.

Becoming a Presence Activist Viral shares nuances of including awareness in the work of social change.

Five Reasons to Serve An articulation of our flavor of volunteering where inner and outer change are fundamentally intertwined. Also see this video.

Ripple Effect of Kindness If you got upgraded to first-class, would you trade seats with someone in economy?

Generosity 2.0 What happens when ancient values meet modern technology? A new kind of revolution.

Rick Ulfik is the founder of “We The World” and the WE Campaign at WE.net which includes a lot of resources for collaboration and action in making the world a better place. Rick has a lot of fabulous projects such as the 11 Days of Global Unity Tele-Summit which was in Sept 11-21, 2017.

Check out his websites including “An Urgent Message From Your Children” at WeYourChildren.org and the GlobalUnityCalendar.org where you can see and post social change and cultural events worldwide.

Below is a message from Rick sharing what its all about:

In order to have a peaceful, caring, just, and sustainable planet, my wish is that We, The World has Full Participation Support now from all our friends and allies, including you, so we can expand our strategic collaborative plan for large scale coalition-building, collective action and the promotion of “WE Thinking” that prioritizes the Common Good for people and the whole web of life.

We believe it is essential to end the pervasive fragmentation of transformative grassroots movements that makes progress towards ending poverty, militarism and climate disruption so much slower than it otherwise could be.

With your generous support (and if possible, connecting us with any Visionary Investors you might know) we can implement our comprehensive “WE Strategy” to properly address the systemic obstacles that perpetuate Rising Inequality, Intolerance, War, Pollution and the Mass Extinction of Species. Our goals are: 1) To greatly expand our already substantial coalition-building accomplishments and establish unprecedented cooperation and coordination between the world’s transformative grassroots movements for change, and 2) To spark a cultural and political shift towards “WE Consciousness” and the Common Good in which the wellbeing of each member of our society and all forms of life are valued and prioritized – from personal attitudes to government policy priorities. With deep gratitude, appreciation and love,

Rick Ulfik

Rick also publishes a magazine TRENDS in Global Grassroots Organizing and he has a wonderful “Declaration of Interdependence” on his website at http://we.net/declaration/ which you can sign. Info below.

PREAMBLE to the Declaration of Interdependence

In acknowledgment of the many existing documents and efforts that promote peace, sustainability, global interconnectedness, reverence for life and unity, We, The World hereby offers the following Declaration of Interdependence as a guiding set of principles. It is inspired by the Earth Charter, the essential values of which represent those of the many peoples of the Earth.

DECLARATION

We, the people of planet Earth, In recognition of the interconnectedness of all life And the importance of the balance of nature, Hereby acknowledge our interdependence And affirm our dedication To life-serving environmental stewardship, The fulfillment of universal human needs worldwide, Economic and social well-being, And a culture of peace and nonviolence, To ensure a sustainable and harmonious world For present and future generations

I lived at the Findhorn Foundation from 1977 to 1984 and left there having married and with two young children. It was a wonderful experience. They are doing very excellent work still today.

The Findhorn Foundation is a dynamic experiment where everyday life is guided by the inner voice of spirit, where we work in co-creation with the intelligence of nature and take inspired action towards our vision of a better world. We share our learning and way of life in experiential workshops, conferences and events that take place within a thriving community and ecovillage.

The Foundation has two main sites. The Park, nestled amidst dunes and forest, bay and beach, is an ecovillage that is home to many of our staff and a larger community of people living with shared values. Cluny Hill is a stately Victorian former hotel, five miles away from The Park, which houses staff and welcomes participants in our workshops and events. Our retreat house on the island of Iona, and the satellite community on the neighbouring island of Erraid, also welcome participants for life-changing experiences on the wild, wind-swept west coast of Scotland.

The Findhorn Foundation is an NGO associated with the United Nations Department of Public Information, holder of UN Habitat Best Practice designation and is co-founder of the Global Ecovillage Network and Holistic Centres Network. The Foundation is at the heart of a community of more than 500 people who every day support and live the vision of creating a better world by starting with themselves.

Through more than 50 years of living and exploring together, three key themes have emerged as guiding principles for our work in the world.

Otto Scharmer, a well known MIT professor, colleague of Peter Senge and author of “Theory U” is offering a series of massive online courses called transforming business society and self. Otto tackles all the big issues in the world and does his best to cultivate people’s leadership capabilities and to move them into prototyping the emerging future that we wish to see. The course I took with him on his MIT Ulab platform had over 40,000 people from 182 countries. It was an amazing experience.

Otto has a very wonderful website for the Presencing Institute at www.presencing.com and the MIT Ulab platform for the course I took is at https://www.edx.org/course/u-lab-leading-emerging-future-mitx-15-671-1x Otto offers all his courses free of charge.

The Caterpillar, the Butterfly & the World

Imagine for a moment that you are a caterpillar who is finishing up with caterpillar life. You have instinctively wrapped yourself in a cocoon. Your old life is dissolving. Nothing works anymore. It looks like chaos. It looks like the end.

Then, in your imagination, put yourself in the position of being the butterfly coming into being as the caterpillar finishes. It feels to you now like the caterpillar has recycled himself to support your new life. Caterpillar chaos and death (?) seems to be allowing room for and actually supporting your becoming something else – something quite new.

One thing we can do in these times of upheaval and turmoil in the world, is to consider this metaphor to begin to look at situations through the eyes of the butterfly. These new eyes focus not so much on the destruction of the old but see most clearly the arising of a new possibility for humankind.